THE YOUNG woman who befriended Tiffany on the Internet seemed innocent enough – so in the midst of a rough patch with her father, the 16-year-old Northeast Philadelphia girl let her new cyber-friend pick her up at home.

When she got into the taxi on that fateful day in January 2006, Tiffany didn’t know that she was stepping into a dark underworld of violence, drugs and sex slavery. The seemingly normal young woman she’d met on MySpace.com delivered her into the hands of Rahiim McIntyre, 36, a now-convicted violent sex trafficker who awaits sentencing in federal prison.

Over the next two weeks, she would face unimaginable horrors as she plotted to get away from her captor without being caught and beaten – or worse.

The experience of Tiffany – a pseudonym created by the Daily News to protect her identity – is not uncommon.

SCOTT DeGIRALOMO, owner of Computer Guy on Torresdale Avenue near Disston, said he’s very happy with the new, huge “Computer Guy” letters that light up in cool blue across the former Tacony post office that now houses his high-tech services business.

“They replaced my hanging disaster of an old sign outside that was about to fall and crush somebody,” DeGiralomo said dryly.

Like Bull’s Eye Dart Supplies next door, Computer Guy is one of 15 businesses along Torresdale Avenue that got a major face-lift, thanks to the Tacony Community Development Corp. and its business corridor manager, Alex Balloon.

“Alex is our general and our cheerleader,” DeGiralomo said, smiling. “I see him marching around here, talking up Tacony’s positives to store owners until he rah-rahs us into being a team.

The Philadelphia middle class, a backbone of economic vitality that once made up the majority of residents in most of the city’s neighborhoods, has declined in steep numbers since 1970, from 59 percent to 42 percent by 2010, according to a report released Monday, the first of its kind.

The precipitous decline of adults within this long-celebrated class occurred widely across the city and most sharply before 2000, sparing only chunks of Far Northeast Philadelphia and Roxborough and smaller pockets elsewhere. Those areas remained majority middle-class as of a few years ago, said the Pew Charitable Trusts, which spearheaded the study.

The data capture what has been sensed and dreaded by policymakers for years: Philadelphia is decidedly poorer than when it was a manufacturing powerhouse, losing even a greater share of higher-taxpaying middle-class residents than the nation as a whole, and failing even to see increases in its upper-class population to match other cities that fared better.

Whether middle-class Philadelphians fell into a lower-income class, moved into the suburbs, or died is not shown by Pew’s analysis, as researchers have found such detailed tracking to be elusive.

As in cheese – the kind normally found sandwiched between corned beef and rye on a Reuben. But this particular man is using his dairy products to satisfy a different craving.

The Mayfair Town Watch reported yesterday on its Facebook page that the “Swiss Cheese Pervert” has been terrorizing neighborhood women.

According to the group, the suspect, a heavyset white man estimated to be in his late 40s or early 50s, approaches women while driving a silver or black sedan with his genitals exposed. He then displays a piece of sliced Swiss cheese and offers to pay the women to put the cheese on his penis and perform sexual acts on him using it.

A sky-high crane dangles over a corner of Franklin Mills Mall these days, but it is more than a towering construction tool: It is a symbol of how necessity is the mother of reinvention at this once-legendary shopping mall.

A Walmart Supercenter is taking shape at the once-pioneering complex, which opened nearly 25 years ago with theme-park anticipation as among the first outlet malls, and the outright largest, ever built. The splashy development, unveiled in 1989, was a gamble befitting its locale, a onetime Northeast Philadelphia racetrack. And early on, its unmatched offerings paid off with packed corridors.

The mall flaunted a 1.2-mile-long, zigzag-shaped concourse, and more than 200 stores hawking discount designer goods, at a time when such wares were available only at out-of-the-way old-factory outlets. Its 1.7 million square feet of bargain buys, right off I-95, was a tourist draw and local sensation.

But the megamall’s early monopoly on outlet shopping has come to an end, forcing Franklin Mills to alter its once-irresistible identity. The Walmart is one of many tenants that now make the monolith, well, a bit more ordinary. And this is by design.

Three people were attacked, in two separate incidents, along Pennypack Creek in Northeast Philly by a rabid beaver(s). On Wednesday, a couple was subjected to an unprovoked beaver attack while fishing. The wife was bitten on the leg. The husband was bitten on both arms and his chest (egad!). On Thursday, a child was bitten by a beaver (also along Pennypack Creek). Fortunately, a park ranger was nearby Thursday and killed the beaver, which tested positive for rabies. It is believed to be the same beaver responsible for Wednesday’s attack.

In April, a fisherman was attacked in Chester County by a rabid beaver. The man drowned the beaver but not before being bitten on the leg and hand in the process. It too tested positive for rabies.

During 2009 and 2010, no rabid beaver cases were reported in Pennsylvania.

I would suspect being bitten by a beaver is quite painful judging by the size of their teeth! Getting rabies shots is not exactly high on anyone’s fun meter either.

A word of caution; if you see any beavers – steer clear. If one moves toward you, run like hell!